Atheism

Atheists define themselves in the negative. We are what we DON'T BELIEVE. We do not believe in gods. However, any negative can also be defined in the positive. Atheism is a small but growing movement now. These new atheists DO have certain affirmative tenets:

❄ There is something called "Faith" which can be defined as unjustified belief held in the teeth of the evidence. Faith is primarily a matter of false propositional belief.

❄ The cure for faith is science: The existence of God is a scientific question: either he exists or he doesn't. "Science is the only way of knowing - everything else is just superstition" [Robert L. Park]

❄ Science is the opposite of religion, and will lead people into the clear sunlit uplands of reason. "The real war is between rationalism and superstition. Science is but one form of rationalism, while religion is the most common form of superstition" [Jerry Coyne] "I am not attacking any particular version of God or gods. I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented." [Dawkins]

❄ In this great struggle, religion is doomed. Enlightened common sense is gradually triumphing and at the end of the process, humanity will assume a new and better character, free from the shackles of religion. Without faith, we would be better as well as wiser. Conflict is primarily a result of misunderstanding, of which Faith is the paradigm. (Looking for links, I just came across a lovely example of this in the endnotes to the Selfish Gene, where lawyers are dismissed as "solving man-made problems that should never have existed in the first place".)

❄ Religion exists. It is essentially something like American fundamentalist protestantism, or Islam. More moderate forms are false and treacherous: if anything even more dangerous, because they conceal the raging, homicidal lunacy that is religion's true nature. [Sam Harris]

❄ Faith, as defined above, is the most dangerous and wicked force on earth today and the struggle against it and especially against Islam will define the future of humanity. A. Brown.

Now, of course not every atheist accepts all of these propositions just as not every Christian accepts all of the dogmatic pronouncements of the Catholic church but they are a summary of the emerging dogma of the New Atheism.

I don't know how you can look at this wonderous universe and not be amazed. Even if you don't believe in God, how can you not be in awe of just everything. I don't understand athiests at all.

I am amazed and in awe of the universe. Why would you think I need a God to facilitate that? Try contemplating it without a Moving Hand sometime...It's even MORE amazing that way.

Yes, we atheists are irritating and pushy, but please bear in mind that:

1) we do not go door to door selling our religion; we do not preach on street corners and we do not expect you to take our holidays off or follow all of our silly rules about diet, clothing, sex, work, play, sleep, holidays, etc.; we don't hold you to the fire or the sword literally; we are only the visible and audible membership of a much larger silent majority of people who get on with their atheism without defending, explaining or evangelizing it in any way; and we're not expecting anybody to go to Atheist Hell for believing in any number of silly religions in series or parallel;

2) we haven't been really big on recruitment drives, by which we mean rounding up thousands of people at sword point and drowing them en masse in the river on the pretext of baptizing their heathen souls; nor have we burned masses of people to death; neither have we impaled their babies on bayonettes nor spears nor swords nor stakes;

3) we do in fact have some pretty clear ideas on where we are going.

We want to encourage people to reason and think rather than accepting random opinions as incontrovertible and unquestionable truths.

We want people to realize that the odds that there is a true religion decrease with each example of a false one, and that the odds of you being born into or converted into the true one, if there is such a thing, are vanishingly small in a world where there are hundreds of millions of false gods and goddesses, each of whom might well be the One True God, one of the Two True Gods, one of the Three True Gods, etc.

We want people to examine the scientific evidence, not look up "Truth" in a book and then stick to it through thick and thin no matter how absurd or contradictory it might be.

I'm increasingly annoyed by those who assume that, because they don't know what an atheist might believe in, all atheists must therefore believe in nothing. I wrote this as a general response to that nonsense, and I feel it applies here as well.

"I believe that, contrary to appearances, things are getting better.

I believe we'll build a better grid, one powered mainly by liquid fluoride thorium reactors, wind farms, geothermal, hydro, and heliostats.

I believe we'll kick our addiction to fossil fuels and ultimately enjoy a better quality of life as a result.

I believe that industrial and agricultural automation can render obsolete all economic models predicated upon the necessity of human labor, and that we will one day be completely free to pursue projects and topics that excite our intellects.

I believe that, with the dissolution of those economic models and their associated ideologies, when machines provide for everyone's needs and every last person on earth has access to healthcare, an education, clean water, food and housing, most of the reasons why we go to war with one another will have been addressed.

I believe that as we reduce suffering and increase education, religion will fade as well, and with it our last reason to wage war.

I suppose. I find God more reasonable as a construct of the amazing human mind. Anything I cannot explain today, I put in the 'God' column. Twelve thousand years ago, that column was pretty full. Since then, however, much has been explained by rational, conscious contemplation and observation. We know what the stars are, and why they move. We know what causes the wind, the tides, the seasons, the rain. We know why the smoking mountain wipes out villages. GOD did not teach us those things. We learned about them because we are complex thinking creatures, and knowing is important to us as a species.

I think that is the greatest POSSIBLE glory.

Atheists are NOT hopeless. They are not the ones that believe they are wretched sinners and unworthy,and render this life meaningless to spend an eternity in paradise...which by the way sounds miserable. they are not the ones blowing each other up, burning each other at the stake, killing and taunting homosexuals. atheists are not the ones who think the earth is the center of the universe and that its 6,000 years old.

You drop an apple, it falls. there must be a reason. if something happens, something causes it to happen. If its not immediately evident to a layperson, then you require more education in order to comprehend or discover the problem. The less education you have, the more likely you are to default to "sky fairies pull it down" than "well, actually, I've heard about gravity, which makes much more sense when you look at the universe through a telescope" Religion says "Trust me" and science says "here, I'll show you"

Most of us could give a flying fark which views you endorse. We're just tired of having to live our lives under the effects of your rules. If you religionists would quit poking your God into places he doesn't belong, we wouldn't care about you one bit, trust me. Blue laws, teaching creationism in schools, moral judgments, holy wars, Sharia law, God Warriors, blocking stem cell research... Hell, even judges sentencing people to AA... there is literally no way for an atheist to go one day unaffected by YOUR views. Oh, but you're the out-upon ones, yes? How dare we bring up the fact that you folks interfere with ourworldviews every second of every day.

Is is YOU christians who believe that if your fairytales were taken away from you that you would be inconsolable.

It is YOU christians who can't stomach the reality of existence.

It is YOU christians who are so insecure that you need to pretend that you are some sort of special thing completely unrelated to the rest of life on this planet.

It is YOU christians who fear death and have to pretend that it's not the end.

It is YOU christians who have never been able to see the universe as the truly glorious and wonderful place it is.

It's almost like religious people are living in black and white and yet they make the most ridiculous arguments that they would off themselves if they were to open their eyes and see the world as it really is.

The thing is, to the atheist, there is no reason to believe in something until it's been factually shown to exist. It's a argument from a logical standpoint, the same one used to dismiss mythological monsters or creatures like unicorns, dragons, etc.

They simply treat gods are nothing different from the above. they ask that the believers prove existence before they will subscribe to their beliefs.